More than once judging by the worn path.
It takes more strength than I recall necessary to pull the towering door open enough for me to wedge myself inside. Pulling the door shut, I’m encased in darkness.
With a long drawn breath, another difference makes itself known.
The air is stale, stagnant.
The scent of sandalwood and jasmine no longer lingers.
I turn and begin down the hall.
There’s no laughter. No shining magelight chandeliers. No alcoves stocked with candles, burning incense, or moonflowers. No one walking through the hall.
It’s no longer bright and clean and open and vibrant.
It’s dark and dirtied and desolate and damaged.
Ruined.
It feels a lot like where Druka used to live in the Tower. The resounding lifelessness and heavy scent of disturbed dust hanging in the air draws me into the past—to a place I’ll never see again, and to a lover I no longer know.
The sharp sting of shame settles around my heart as I walk. Netharis’ lesson on the impact of my choices—romantic or otherwise—runs rampant in my head.
I sow death and decay.
Whether I intend to… or not.
Climbing over a toppled and broken pillar, glass crunches underfoot as I land on the other side. It’s hard to see much of anything, but on the off chance it isn’t Eve I’m following, I’d rather not summon a magelight.
The hall opens to the sanctum and I stop.
Burning beams of sunlight pour through the east facing windows, sundering sections of the dark. And in those streams of light, more of the destruction is revealed.
Debris strewn across the floor—remnants of the benches.
Dried blood, near black now, stains the white floor. Or perhaps it is black. The grounds were flooded by demons after all.
The silver of a toppled chandelier shines ahead, the once beautiful twisting piece now tangled and tarnished.
And the colossal statue of Celesta?
Her head lies at her feet, cratered into the dais, in the exact place where she and I stood. It peers heavenward, sightless eyes now gouged and scarred by the talons of demons.
I don’t understand it.
Celesta could have stopped them.
She was a godsdamnedgoddess.
Why didn’t she?
Ryc shared what happened in the moments following my death. Celesta vanished, the ward fell, and the demons stormed the temple. And despite both Ryc and Rowen defending the devotees, the demons hunted them—bypassing the soldiers to spill their blood and steal their souls.
Undoubtedly as a message from Netharis.
If I wanted, I could learn more.
There’s plenty of blood left for me to scry.
